Regulating Freedom of Expression Online

The right to freedom of expression is not absolute, and can be limited in some respects. The internet has revolutionised our ability to exercise this right, as well as the ability to interact with others and shares our views and thoughts.

However, the restrictions and responsibilities that come with the right to freedom of expression can often be ignored when our expressions are online- the ease at which we can publish online, and the extent of coverage available on any given topic or issue makes it significantly harder to monitor these restrictions and responsibilities than is possible in print and broadcast.

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LonelyBoy_16, SexyBitch21, eMoPrInCeSs, Cut3yPi3, Baby_Spice, and Oprah28475849 all have one thing in common- they are paedophiles. Okay, well maybe not paedophiles, perhaps they are all lonely, desk job individuals looking for conversation. Or maybe they are all high school kids looking to chat about the latest Twilight movie. Point is, with user IDs that allow you to keep your real identity anonymous, or allow you to reinvent your identity, you can never be certain who people are online.

Deborah Johnson, in her paper Ethics Online: Shaping social behaviour online takes more than new laws and modified edicts, points out how most social networks and online communication platforms make use of generic user Ids; the result of this is that the individual must make a concerted effort to establish their real identity- online communication seems to favour anonymity. The creation of different personas on discussion boards, blogs, email accounts, and social networks has both benefits and dangers, with the ethical question asking where we draw the line between protecting anonymity, and deceiving others.

Commonly Creative

Creative Commons (CC) is a web portal that allows local creators, educators and administrators to distribute their ideas and creations; free licences and legal tools make it easy for internet users to share and build on the work of others while abiding by copyright laws.

Creative Commons South Africa states that as South Africans, the idea that collective knowledge should form the starting point of a fluid, continuously-evolving creation process is not new- it is merely an extension of ‘ubuntu’. It supports the belief that the creation process evolves from the community, and that some of the value of the creation must be given back to the community in order to strengthen future contributions.

Julius Malema ©

Bloody Agent on the DanceFLOOR
So Malema did/said something stupid again- this really isn’t anything new now is it? And as uh, creative or unique his comments may be each time, the novelty of his stupidity does get old. Being creative and frustrated minds in the media industry we tend to find comfort in satire; ZA News and Zapiro did a good job of dealing with Zuma, and now, coming to a dance floor near you, ‘Revolutionary House’ featuring our one and only, Julius Malema!

Evolution vs. Extinction

Traditional journalism values and ethics have provided a steady moral ground from which the journalist begins his work; it is the basis of many a first year journalism student’s theory lessons, it is the start of a code of conduct for any publication, and they were the basics from which broadcast ethics and laws stemmed.

Kendyl Salcito of the Centre for Journalism Ethics (www.journalismethics.ca/online_journalism_ethics) states that ‘journalism is evolving rapidly in a “mixed media” of traditional newspapers and broadcast stations combined with a “new media” of on-line journalists’- thus our ethics and laws must evolve with the advancements of journalism technology.